Source: National Farm Animal Care Council
The goal, after finalizing the 23-member Transportation Code Development Committee (CDC), was to hold a face-to-face meeting in the spring of 2020. As that was not possible, the CDC met over a series of 5 online meeting sessions in late June which, in effect, replaced what would have normally been a day-and-a-half in-person meeting. While not ideal for a first meeting for such a large group, the revised format was successful in that the meeting’s primary goals were achieved.
To address varying degrees of background and Code development experience amongst CDC members, the first 4 sessions focussed on bringing everyone up to a similar level of knowledge of both the generalities and specifics of the Transportation Code development project. The final session was used to draw on the experience and expertise of CDC members to land on a starting point for the Code structure (i.e., table of contents) and to agree on sub-committee topics and rosters. As a reminder, the CDC is responsible for developing content that is common to all types of animals that are covered by the Transportation Code of Practice.
Five sub-committees have been established to review and provide input on various subject-related topics that impact the transportation of all animals covered by the Code. The sub-committees will be responsible for content that falls in the following categories:
A. Personnel & Equipment
B. Loading and Unloading
C. Pre-Transport Planning
D. Ventilation
E. (Understanding Implications of) Fitness for Transport
Each sub-committee has between 5 and 8 members, and 3 of the sub-committees have been targeted to commence work as soon as possible. The start-up of the other 2 sub-committees will be staggered in an effort to manage the workload for the CDC members and the Code team. Sub-committees that are working on topics that will need species-specific Working Group (WG) input have been prioritized to start work immediately, so that WG expertise can be utilized to add animal-specific content as early in the process as possible.
Two online meetings for the entire CDC will be scheduled in the fall, and after that we are looking at early in 2021 as the first opportunity for the group to meet in-person. The CDC will continue to meet every 3 months or so over the course 2021. As with other Codes developed using the NFACC process, sub-committees will convene via online meetings between CDC meetings to draft topic-specific content.
While some WGs continue to draft content for their sections (e.g., Poultry; Hatchery; Mink/Fox/Rabbit) via online meetings, the bulk of the remaining WGs are currently in “pause” mode. It is expected that the thosepaused WGs will start to meet (online and in-person) starting in the spring of 2021.
The 60-day Public Comment Period (PCP) is targeted to start in June, 2022, after which we expect that the CDC will meet twice to review comments and make amendments to the Code draft. At that time, the CDC may elect to ask species-specific WGs to review and discuss specific comments that are animal-specific in nature.
Previous progress updates on the transportation Code are available here.
